Dale Stinton, National Association of Realtors (NAR) CEO, spoke here at Inman Connect about their recent 900 person board meeting. In that meeting they came away with 13 “exciting initiatives” (time will tell if that’s a prophetic number…) that they were going to do.

Interesting tidbits:

• NAR wants to play directly with the consumer
• Raising NAR dues gives them $100 million to play with
• NAR wants to be the consumer advocate to Washington DC

Is it just me, or does anyone really think that an organization that moves as ponderously slowly as NAR, and needs 900 people to reach consensus for any decision, really has a chance to play in the fast-moving and dynamic consumer market?

How many large organizations have been able to make a web-play that actually works? If tech giants like Microsoft can’t even buy their way into the consumer market, how realistic is it for NAR?

I might be being overly pessimistic on this. Dale did mention that they wanted to be the consumer’s advocate lobbying in DC. Okay, I can buy that. How though? How are you going to get consumers to pay attention to you online?

Dale mentioned that Realtor.com has fallen behind, but that when they catch up, they won’t fall behind again. Technically, that’s possible, I just don’t believe they can do it. There’s a lot of catch-up that will have to be done, as the Trulia’s, eppraisal.com’s and Zillow’s of the world keep innovating and winning the attention of the average American.

Matt Heaton and Caleb Mardini handed out the Project Blogger awards, put together by Active Rain and Inman. It’s where prominent real estate bloggers took a real estate agent new to the blogosphere under their wings for 4 months.

Congrats to Mary Pope-Handy of Live in Los Gatos and her mentor, Frances Flynn Thorsen, theRealtyGram! $5000 will be donated to a charity from this competition.

It’s to easy for us technologists to get caught up in our technology, our blogs or our social networks. When we do, we often fail to remember that these are tools that are there to facilitate communication and build towards offline interaction, business and partnerships.

A bunch of us are converging on San Francisco in our annual pilgrimage to Real Estate Tech Mecca. It’s a fun event, where we realize the culmination of our online work throughout the year in the connections made face-to-face. Many of us will go away with partnerships and new business opportunities because of the time spent online blogging or connecting through social networking vehicles like Active Rain and Facebook.

This same lesson applies to real estate agents online. Again, it’s easy to get lost in the myriad tools and possibilities open to you online. You could spend a lot of time making sure you’ve got a couple hundred friends on Facebook, answering questions on Trulia Voices or blogging. The most important thing to remember is that you should be driving towards offline (face-to-face) meetings.

The websites and tools available online are just facilitators for your offline interaction.

Chances are, the next real estate deal you make might be instigated by something you did online. However, it will likely be finalized only after meeting face-to-face. The truth is that offline interaction is far more powerful than online.

Take the opportunity, whenever it arises to use tools that help raise your visibility online – grow your brand. But, also take the opportunity to leverage that into meetings and events that actually result in business.

I was able to get an advanced copy of Inman’s State of Real Estate Marketing 2007 report, which just became available on their website. It’s 50 page document on real estate marketing, based on a survey of 770 real estate professionals via their website. This means that it has a bent towards technology-focused real estate pros, but the findings are interesting none-the-less.

On Newbies vs Old Hands

Respondents who had fewer than five years’ experience in real estate were most likely to say they planned to spend more on marketing in the next year. A full 58% of these relative newbies planned to increase their marketing spend while an additional 25% planned to spend the same amount. At the other end of the spectrum, respondents who had more than 15 years’ experience in real estate were slightly less likely to say they planned to increase or hold steady on marketing expenditures. That may be because these veterans rely on low-cost referrals for new business or because they’d already increased their annual advertising budgets earlier in their careers.

On Print vs Online Advertising
I found it interesting that they had no real solid finding on what way marketers were planning to go on print vs online advertising. Having just covered the fact that Realogy and HomeServices are both downsizing their print spend, it seems that the trend should be moving towards online and away from print.

On Blogging
As mentioned earlier, the people who took this questionnaire likely have a tendency towards being first-movers in new technology for real estate. When we look at the numbers of bloggers, this becomes pretty clear, as there is no way that they match up to what the true numbers are for real estate bloggers in the country:

On Social Networking
30.9% of the agents are getting involved with social networking websites – that’s a fairly large percentage too. Of course, that means there are over 60% who are not, but at this point in the cycle of new online media those are pretty solid numbers. When asked which sites they use, it was no surprise that Active Rain came out on top.

What I would like to see is a break down of which sites they go to for industry purposes compared to the ones they are a part of to actually market themselves and sell property.

In just 1 week real estate bloggers from around the US will descend upon San Francisco to be a part of “Blogger Connect“. Blogger Connect is an extension of the Inman Real Estate Connect conference that happens twice a year in New York and San Francisco.

As many people struggle to find the value in blogging and decide if it works for their business, I don’t. You see, I believe that blogging and social networks provide a valuable service by creating connections and these connections prove their value through the offline interactions that come about because of them.

Can you get a lot out of reading a smart person’s blog? Yes.

Can you learn new ways to create business for yourself and your real estate organization through blogs? Of course.

Does your personal brand, or company brand, increase in value because of your blog? Probably, but it depends how engaging you are.

There are a lot of reasons to blog, but the one reason that provides the most return on your time investment is the offline interactions that result in more business, new friends and stronger relationships. Connecting to a larger hub of people, and being able to communicate with them all easily, allows you to leverage that group when you have a specific need.

If you are a real estate blogger and are not getting involved with the community, offline as well as online, then you’re missing out. If you’re looking to make some connections that will help you in this smaller-than-you-imagine real estate blogosphere, then buy a ticket to meet up with us in San Francisco in 2 weeks (July 31 – Aug 1).

[UPDATE: the videos have gone live, it's Carrie Chiang, SVP Corcoran. We were fortunate enough to be able to sponsor it too.]

I met Eric Carlsen, co-founder of Online WalkThru, at Inman’s Real Estate Connect conference in New York this January. Naturally, I couldn’t help but proselytize blogging and shortly thereafter the Voxury Populi blog was started, which focuses on the luxury real estate market.

What’s been really interesting to watch is how the team at Online WalkThru has put their own twist on blogging within real estate. They have invited a few guest bloggers, and this month they will launch a new weekly videocast called Vox One. The show is going to be the new anchor-point for their blog, and will feature interviews and insights into the lives of top producers in the luxury real estate market.

The new luxury real estate show starts on June 27th. Bookmark their blog now.

Hitwise has ranked eppraisal.com in the top 100 of real estate sites on the web. That’s exciting news for us here at eppraisal.com, a reason to celebrate a little, thus the badge I just created.

Getting to be a part of the top 100 is significant for us, since we just launched at NAR in November of last year. We’re working to make sure our product gets better all the time. Most recently we have offered the ability to get a “real” appraisal via our appraiser network, and we’ve just finished a complete website redesign.

Here’s a small excerpt from the article, you can read the rest at Inman:

Making the top 100 list is a significant achievement because those sites hog more than two-thirds of traffic in the category, or 69.6 percent, according to Hitwise.

Two sites that came out of nowhere to break into the top 100 were eppraisal.com and the MRMLS Central Site, Hitwise reported.

The site eppraisal.com, which uses public records to generate automated home valuations and provides referrals to real estate professionals, debuted at number 50 in April. MRMLS (Multi-Regional Multiple Listing Service Inc.), a provider of MLS technology and electronic data exchange between member associations, was ranked the 65th most visited site by Hitwise. Neither site was ranked in March.

We’re continuing to diversify our offering and make sure that we have great information for anyone looking into information about their property. Look for more great things soon!

My first day back in Orlando after Inman in New York this week. Besides trying to catch up on emails and following up with all the great people that I ran into, I’m trying to find some time for a quick post. First, some outstanding reviews of the conference:

• Inman Connect Highlights by Joel at FoREM
• Check out the Sellsius blog for pictures and video
• Glen at Redfin about the fireworks between him and Alan Dalton

Okay, on to my thoughts about the conference. Because it was in New York, there was a great deal of NY-centric commentary and sessions. For instance, one of my favorite sessions was on blogging, and it had a great panel of bloggers. However, I left wishing that there had been a few non-NY bloggers on the panel.

New York was the focus, as well as technological shifts as they relate to social media and user generated content. Why then was Streeteasy not present on any of the panels as speakers for their product and what they’re doing in New York real estate? They are the epitome of what a niche company can do to embrace real estate professionals, generate user comments and track data within a metro area.

Video was highlighted by Brad Inman as being one of the big things that will have a major impact on the industry this year. Companies like Brad’s Turn Here, Online WalkThru (high-end real estate video) and WellcomeMat (the YouTube of real estate) are poised to make a big difference. Each of these products are going to make a splash this year, and each serve a different demographic. I would have loved to see a panel where they all squared off against each other.

Overall, Inman pulled off an incredible conference, as they always do. The topics were interesting, the panelists were top-notch and the networking phenomenal. That’s what Inman conferences are for, and they do it better than anyone else. I’m already looking forward to the one in San Francisco this summer.

Inman New York is winding down, and I’ve had the time to upload a couple of videos from it. One of my favorite sessions was “Predicting Real Estate’s Future Trends” moderated by Michael Rogers, the New York Times Futurist-in-Residence. I was able to capture his opening comments on the video below:

Real estate is inherently local. When people are running an estimated home valuation, it’s generally done in their own neighborhood or those of friends and family. This week at Inman’s Real Estate Connect in New York we are unveiling a new feature of eppraisal.com that allows real estate professionals to sponsor a zip code.

With eppraisal.com Sponsorships, we are providing a way for real estate professionals to connect with the eppraisal.com users that are eager to understand how much their castle is worth and what to do with it. By sponsoring a zip code, or multiple zip codes, professionals gain exclusive access to members within the area as well as premium advertising opportunities to those targeted zones. Leveraging eppraisal.com Sponsorships, professionals are able to immediately find consumers that are ready to take action on buying, selling or re-financing a home.

Starting next week at Inman, any real estate professional can begin sponsoring a zip code at $20 per month. As always, give it a try and give us your feedback. We’re always looking at ways to improve our service, and your feedback is critical for that to happen.